Rungano Nyoni puts a unique surreal Africa on the film of the film

When A24 went on board to distribute the latest film by Rungano Nyoni, “On Becoming A Guinea”, the director was a bit suspicious.

“The A24 is such a brand-and the brands always scare me,” she said on a zambia office space where she parked so that she can get a good Wi-Fi signal for our interview. “And also the Americans really scare me. It's really intense.

She also wondered why the company would like to get on board with a film from her country.

“They had not made African films,” said Nyoni, 42, in his British accent. “I said to myself:” Why do they want to make an African film? ” I was very suspicious all the time. Normal people are happy with these things. But then I start to think: what are the consequences? What does that mean? Do they want a kidney? What is their style? I remember that I said to my team: “I don't think my film is very cool.” “”

For what it is worth, the Nyoni film is very cool, even if it constantly pivots its conversation with this kind of playful self-depreciation. Even as a foreigner, you can understand why A24 would connect. Nyoni caused a sensation in 2017 with His first feature acclaimed by criticism“I am not a witch”, a comic satire also closed in Zambia about a young girl accused of witchcraft.

His second act, “On Becoming Guinea”, which arrives in theaters on Friday, is coupled with his artistic vision, solidifying Nyoni as one of the pre -eminent voices of African cinema today. She now has a global platform, some filmmakers from the continent receive.

Surreal and sometimes sorely funny, the new film follows Shula (Susan Chardy), which we meet for the first time at the house of a costume party on a dark and calm road. (She wears the same look as Missy Elliott had in her video for “The Rain”, the sparkling mask included.) There, Shula falls on the corpse of her uncle Fred, lying in the gutter. After alerting the police and his family to mysterious death, Shula is encroorded in the local traditions of Mourning.

Slowly, however, you realize exactly what kind of man Fred was through the distress faces of Shula and his other younger parents. He was a sexual attacker in series, a fact that has passed the performative mourning of others. The film was created at Cannes festival of last year, where Nyoni won the staging prize in the United Nations section for one.

“Being an African film is not easy because you have no funding for Africa,” said Nyoni. “So you must have a double identity which, sometimes, benefits you to be African cinema, sometimes it benefits you from being something else. When we went to Cannes, for example, there was a great debate on: “This film is not Zambian”. I said, “But it's Zambian.” They were like: “No, it must be British”. »»

Nyoni had the impression that part of his identity was refused. (Cannes ended up listing the film as being from Zambia, the United Kingdom and Ireland.)

Although she did not want to take seven years to follow up on “I'm not a witch”, Nyoni says she needed time to recover from the experience.

“It was painful,” she recalls, a feeling linked to “having to prove yourself” to the financiers. But she adds that her whole specifically posed a unique challenge given the “cultural differences” between working with a Zambian crew and a British crew.

“I think that filming platforms are a mini representation of what can happen in the world, and it can become ugly,” she said. “It's the most beautiful way of saying it. You see how people get into a hierarchy and the other lower. “She found that the Zambian crew” probably suffered under this too because they are taken less seriously and that I found it really difficult. “

Having a foot in the African and European worlds, however, is in many ways which defined the life and career of Nyoni. Born in Zambia, his family left for Cardiff in Wales at the age of 9. Assating at the University of Birmingham, where she initially studied business, she became fascinated with Isabelle Huppert in “The Piano Teacher” by Michael Haneke.

“I watched this film a million times because I think: what magic is it, that I can be so involved with this unmanageable woman?” Nyoni remembered. “I loved it, someone so different from me – it's power. I thought it came from Isabelle Huppert. I was like she is great, I want to be like her. She did this thing for me. But then, of course, it's Haneke. That's it. If I could do it for African cinema, people are simply not connected to your world and make them connect, I think it would be, for me, an incredible achievement. »»

Maggie Mulubwa during the start of Nyoni in 2017, “I'm not a witch”.

(Cinematic movement)

Although her films can be quite critical of Zambian society, Nyoni herself has a “romantic” conception of the place. About four months ago, she returned to live there with her partner and her 3-year-old daughter; She wanted her child to grow up in the same place as she did. Nyoni also cares about Maggie Mulubwa, the 16 -year -old actor who played in “I am not a witch”.

She jokes that she moved after each film. After “I'm not a witch”, she went to Portugal. However, it was Zambia – and a personal loss – which served as inspiration for “Guinea Fowl”.

About three years ago, his grandmother died and the director returned home for the funeral. His great-uncle had issued a mandate from his village according to which they would not cry the death of his sister typically of Zambia: nobody would sleep at home; No one was crying for sorrow. This left Nyoni with downtime because she did not have to answer anyone. However, it was restless. When she finally slept a little, she had a dream which was “essentially the story of Shula in its very skeletal form”.

“I woke up and went to my living room and I started writing it,” she said.

Nyoni loved her grandmother, just as she loved her uncle who had died shortly before. But this love is what caused him to make a film in which the exact opposite is the case.

“When I cried my uncle, I remember turning to my partner and saying:” Imagine if you don't like that person and you have to do all of this. “”

In “Guinea Fowl”, funeral rituals are tedious. The women of Shula's family must cook and clean for all guests and are reprimanded when they are not very sad. During all this time, stress is increased by the fact that the man whose life ended caused pain that struck the generations. India poultry, small birds that can cut down predators while working in groups, become an appropriate metaphor for the way women are binding together, as well as a haunting visual motive. (The film even includes a sidebar with an educational children's television program, describing the creature.)

Elizabeth Chisela in “becoming a poultry of India”.

(A rockery masonry / a24)

Despite the severity of the subject, Nyoni also breathes the film with black humor, whether it is the drunk cousin of Shula Twerk on his car or this Missy Elliott outfit.

“The tone is really important for me,” says Nyoni. “Sometimes it strikes: do I try to provoke people?” You try to find the right balance. In the funeral, many funny and absurd things happen. For example, people will cry and then be on their phones. »»

Nyoni understands that her films can give people bad impressions about what she thinks of Zambia. She learned that the people of a festival in Zimbabwe were offended by “the poultry of India”.

“Then I started playing my film in my head, like, oh, yeah, it looks offensive. It looks like I really laugh at Zambian culture, ”she says. “I think people were confused.”

Sometimes his intentionally eccentric embellishments do not register for an audience outside of his own country. “Literally, public members thought we are reading women in trucks, right?” The director remembers an early reaction to “I am not a witch” at the Toronto International Film Festival. “And I thought, what did I do?” I add to this nonsense of what people think of Africa. »»

She knows that she can only be responsible for what she creates, but he is still struggling with the way of presenting her world. “My biggest fight, more than reiterating stereotypes or clichés, is that I am more afraid of stupid or to water my culture so that people make them understand it,” she said. “I think I need to find a balance of contextualization without thinking as if I frequented people.”

For his future projects, Nyoni hopes to expand her horizons. She has another development film in Zambia, but also a film with the director of “Moonlight”, Barry Jenkins, the pastel that would run in Europe and a science fiction project taking place in Botswana. She is intimidated by the idea of ​​science fiction because it would require a lot of visual post-work, which she says “scares”. She almost wants her to go back to school to learn to make special effects.

“This is what happens after making your first film or your second,” she says. “It ruins the illusion you can do everything.”

But everything is exactly what she did. Anyway, Nyoni adds: “I am neurotic anyway.” Its modesty and nerves are authentic.